Medical Student Arrested For Illegal Sale Of Weapons

December 06, 1994|By Larry Hartstein, Tribune Staff Writer.

A New York City medical school student on surgical rotation at a Chicago hospital was arrested in a sting operation Monday night after he allegedly sold 18 semiautomatic handguns to an undercover agent from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, authorities said.

James Kim, 25, of 6120 N. Washtenaw Ave., who is in the middle of a rotation at Jackson Park Hospital and Medical Center, had allegedly been buying guns legally at suburban dealerships, removing the serial numbers and selling the weapons to North Side gangs in the area of Lawrence Avenue and Pulaski Road, said Donald Hilbring, commander of the Chicago Police Department's gang investigation section.

Kim, a fourth-year student at Ross University School of Medicine in New York, was charged with illegal dealing of firearms and possession of firearms with obliterated serial numbers, said ATF spokesman Jerry Singer. If convicted, those charges carry a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison, Singer said.

Kim was being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center and is to appear Tuesday before a magistrate in U.S. District Court in Chicago.

The undercover agent arranged to meet Kim in a room at the Carriage House Motor Inn, 2080 N. Mannheim Rd., Northlake, and to buy 18 .380-caliber handguns for $7,200, Singer said. At 9 p.m., after some of the money had switched hands, officers from the gang unit and the ATF stormed in and arrested Kim, Singer said.

Hilbring said Kim could have supplied officers with 200 guns if they had ordered that many.

"This is an individual who is going to be a doctor, selling weapons of destruction that are being used to slaughter our innocents and maim individuals on our streets," Hilbring said.

Before Monday's sting operation, undercover officers had previously purchased two semiautomatic handguns and a .22-caliber rifle from Kim, Hilbring said.

Police were searching Kim's home Monday night for more weapons, Hilbring said.